“Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” Punched My Life In The Face

By: Sam Moore

My all-time favorite movie, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, is now six years old.

Every August marks the birthday of this cult-classic, but for me it also marks something much different. I saw this strange movie on the premier night with a few friends. None of us knew anything about it other than Michael Cera was going to punch bad guys in the face, but that seemed like it was worth the price of admission. I figured it would be a fun, turn-off-your-brain-for-a-few-hours type of flick, but my life went down an absurdly different path after watching this movie.

For those unfamiliar, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is about Scott, a 22-year old nerd/loser who has to fight the seven evil exes of Ramona Flowers, the girl of his literal dreams. The movie, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz), is based off of a comic book/manga written by Bryan Lee O’Malley which began in 2004. Scott Pilgrim routinely breaks the bounds of reality: fourth-wall narration, ridiculous over-the-top fight scenes, and nerd culture references galore. It’s so incredibly bizarre and chock full of gags/references/insanity that I often catch something new every time I watch it. There’s still nothing quite like Scott Pilgrim, and I doubt there ever will be.

While the fight scenes, humor, and nerdiness struck a chord with me in ways few movies have, there was something else that drew me in: the music. Scott plays bass in his self-described “terrible” band, Sex Bob-Omb (whose songs in the movie are written by the legendary Beck himself), and the audience hears them for the first time as the opening credits play. They sound like three horribly unpracticed musicians wrote a song in ten minutes, cranked the distortion, and recorded it inside of a garbage can in one take.

I absolutely loved it.

At the time, I was still somewhat new to punk and had very little experience in actually playing music, despite being a huge music fan. But there was something so appealing about this silly, fake band that I couldn’t escape. It was like they knew they weren’t good, but they played hard anyway and make it look so cool. I still remember seeing those opening credits and thinking to myself “I need to play music like this,” which is a weird thought to have since this band wasn’t even real. And then there’s the “Bass Battle” scene (you know the part). This movie was making the most overlooked instrument seem like the coolest one.

I wasn’t alone in appreciating this fake band. After the movie my friends and I talked about how surprisingly great it was, especially the music. I kept thinking about how fun it looked to play music and be in a band, even a sucky one. Maybe it was Scott Pilgrim’s perfect mixture of style, humor, and nerdiness that impacted me so deeply, but I felt oddly inspired after seeing it. At that moment I decided to do something impulsive, which is totally unlike me.

“I’m going to buy a bass guitar tomorrow, and we are going to start a band,” I told my friends as we walked back to our cars.

“Okay,” they said, nodding, like this was perfectly normal and expected. It was like something had beamed a message into all of our brains: start a band.

And so we did. I bought a cheap bass and amp, and signed up for lessons. I was 19 at the time which seemed a little older than most people who pick up an instrument for the first time, but I figured if I didn’t do it then I’d never get around to it and regret it forever. Turns out I was right, because playing music quickly became my favorite thing in the world.

We were a hundred times worse than Scott’s band when we first started (maybe we still are). But being bad just made it seem like we were that much closer to this goofy, fake band we loved so much. We could joke about it, which took the pressure off and just let us have fun messing around. And that’s all it was for a while until we found a singer; a friend of a friend, who, on the first night we met him, unpromptedly told us, “All I want to do is be in a band like the one in Scott Pilgrim.” The conversation that followed went something along the lines of:

“Can you sing?”

“Yep.”

“Welcome to the band.”

It was absolutely bizarre how everything came together. We were all, separately, inspired by a fake band in a movie that by all accounts tanked in the box office. And yet all the puzzle pieces were finally in place. It took us a long time to get serious about playing music, but we slowly got there. Fast forward six years and we’ve now released a couple EPs, done a couple tours (during the last of which we all got matching Sex Bob-Omb tattoos), played our first festival, and started on our first full-length album.

It’s strange to think Scott Pilgrim came out six years ago, especially since the memories of that night and seeing it for the first time are still so vivid to me. It’s even stranger to think what my life would look like had I not seen it. Would I have ever picked up an instrument? Started a band? Had the opportunity to travel and play music? Probably not. I can try and picture what that would look like but I honestly have no idea. That’s how important music has become in my life.

There’s a reason that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World has achieved cult-classic status despite not being a box office hit. Its nerdy, punk rock, anime-brought-to-life style only ever appealed to a very niche group, but for those few it will always be unforgettable. I like to think it impacted all of its fans, whether it was a relatable and comforting story during a tough time, inspiration to start a band, or just providing a hundred great quotes to use in casual conversation. Happy birthday, Scott Pilgrim. If my life has a face, you punched it and sent me flying down a completely different path in life and I will always be thankful for that.

Sam Moore is the bassist of Flint, Michigan’s Sex Bob-Omb-inspired Copneconic and is an aspiring writer. For more nerd love, follow him on Twitter.